


Fragments

by Monochromely



Series: Fragments [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-07-10 12:28:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 100
Words: 9,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15949364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monochromely/pseuds/Monochromely
Summary: 100 drabbles, 100 words each.|| Fragments from Steven's universe.





	1. Fear

**Author's Note:**

> When I wrote "Shatterer" last week, I realized that a lot of my writer's block stems from the fact that I don't write consistently. So when I go to write something as daunting as "Flower Child" can be, I get anxious 'n perfectionistic, all tensed limbs and underused writing muscles. This little project is going to be my means of warming up every few days or so.
> 
> Feel free to send in prompts, either here or on Tumblr (mimik-u). I'll take most ships, platonic relationships, character studies, situations, etc. The only thing I _really_ can't do is NSFW. 
> 
> ✦
> 
>  _Prompt:_ For the SU prompts, perhaps you could write good ol' Bellow Diamond with Yellow Diamond being protective over Blue? (Shattered was really good. My heart almost died from the angst!)

Five thousand lunar cycles into Yellow Diamond’s lifespan, she finally learns what it means to fear death.

She is young, more developing sediment than immortal goddess, and this makes her want to look away from Blue’s less than graceful descent through the air.

The awkward flailing of her cloaked limbs.

The sickening crack of white quartz as her spine collides against floor.

Yellow crawls to her side, on all fours, like a _dog_.

“Blue!” Her voice is hoarse, unrestrained, spiraling out of control. “ _Blue!_ ”

But White Diamond only laughs, heavy fabric—torn, desecrated—swaying from the tips of her claws.


	2. Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Bellow Diamond first kiss?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AO3 isn't counting words correctly, and that makes me want to fight this entire website. (ง'̀-'́)ง
> 
> Come @ me and my tiny, ineffectual fists.

The permafusion tells her that a kiss is an experience, the electric union of two souls.

It makes sense… for what _she_ is.

Off-color.

The Pearl (once White’s, then Pink’s, now nobody’s) stares off into the distance and says that a kiss is magic, binding and freeing all at once.

“ _We_ kissed,” she whispers, not without some defiance, “Often.”

Moonlight on the beach, weaving itself through Yellow’s hair like shimmering, silver threads, and Blue cannot stand _not_ knowing any longer.

Unthinking, she leans forward, blue lips pressing urgently against gold.

She tastes like music.

Taut lyre strings.

Holy.

Divine.


	3. Waves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Blue + waves? :0

Fourteen years ago, Pink was still very much alive and her bare feet touched this golden sand.

_Fourteen years._

A mere eye blink to a Diamond.

An affront.

She can almost reach backwards in time and snag the train of her dress. (Her long fingers tangling around fabric, she imagines she would say _sorry_.)

But where her footsteps might have been, waves have been there already—dark, cresting things—unforgiving and indiscriminate, they’ve kneaded all traces of her into nothing.

Blue closes her eyes and half-wishes they would do the same to her.

Wash away her every haunted place.

 


	4. Pitiless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ May I ask a prompt ? I'd like an interaction between Pearl and the Diamonds after the battle and before Steven wakes up.

The battle is over, but no one is the winner because Steven is still sprawled in the sand, Pink Diamond peeking out from under the button down shirt she had immaculately pressed only this morning.

“Why isn’t she waking up?” Yellow Diamond demands, and it might have been intimidating were it not for the slight quiver in her irascible voice.

But Pearl has no pity for her.

For stars’ sake, she was the one who stepped on him after all.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” she says, and thousands of years of ingrained servitude suddenly mean nothing anymore.


	5. Robot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ uhh - pink pearls opinion // inner monologue on white pearl and how robotic she is ,, ??

It is only a second.

An inconsequential fraction of eternity.

But just before white light engulfs Steven and White Pearl, the monochromatic head tilts in her direction, regards her with one black eye.

Even as she smiles blankly, Pearl can feel the burn of recognition.

The condemnation.

There is someone still inside that bastardization of a creature.

She is the perfect Pearl, subservient, unwavering.

She is a lobotomized monstrosity.

(Once upon a time, she loved to sing.)

“That Pearl was effed up,” Amethyst says three seconds after Garnet has already covered Connie’s ears.

“It isn’t her fault,” Pearl whispers, unheard.


	6. Colors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ White Diamond + colors?

In the beginning, there is White and only White—achromatic, vibrant, extraordinary, _alone_. She erupts out of a supernova and fashions Homeworld from the debris. She and it and this alien race are consequences of a dying star.

Her first subjects are made in her likeness—prototypic Pearls and Moonstones, Chalcedonies. They are so grateful to be alive that they can never be her equals.

One cycle, she destroys them all on a whim.

She does not know what she is looking for.

A blue quasar (fading).

A golden sun (dying).

(Colors and companions.)

It is lonely in space.

Dull.


	7. Loved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ PinkxRose. Maybe before PinkD became Rose, like their last night together as Pink Diamond and her servant Pearl

The globe throws its image around the circular chamber.

A fire, slowly flickering to embers.

The stars, cold and regal, wheeling across the sky in nightly conference.

A human family: a man, a woman, a child. They are pressed together.

 _Shh_ , they are sleeping.

Pink Diamond, knees against her chest, chin resting lightly on her knees, sighs, the sound soft and susurrant, a whisper in a windless room.

“They’re so intimate with each other,” she murmurs longingly. “Loved—I wish I had that.”

Stung, Pearl tries not to wince anyway.

“Tomorrow, my Diamond,” she offers. “If everything goes right, _tomorrow_.”


	8. Swim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ lapis/peridot. peridot helping lapis through some of the stuff she's gone through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the prompts! Keep them coming. They're much appreciated.

Peridot laps one end of the pool to the other, all awkwardness and clumsy limbs. She’s never really swam before, but stars, she wants to learn.

Wants to be able to swim at the beach with Steven.

Wants to explore the ocean with Garnet someday.

She’s so focused that she doesn’t realize that Lapis has materialized from the shadows of the barn until the last second—arms crossed.

Wary.

Caged.

(Longing.)

“Why do you swim with your head above water?”

“Baby steps,” she shrugs earnestly.

Lapis only tilts her head, as though the thought has never crossed her mind before.


	9. Undead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Maybe some Larsadie? they both have a lot of anxieties that i'd love to see dealt with.

The question, as questions are wont to do, comes out of left field.

And socks Lars right in the gut.

“Lars?”

“Yeah, Sadie?”

They’re lying on her bed in opposite directions, hands just barely brushing.

“Do ya think we’re just... I dunno, wasting our lives here? We go to work, and then we come home, and then we do it again, and I just... kinda feel dead inside, y’know?”

A pause, electric with their fears.

The doomed to be dead boy bites his lip so hard that blood wells.

The future singer of the undead swallows back words.

“I know.”


	10. Discarded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Writer's Choice:_ Steven writes a letter to Lars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yooooo, we're a tenth of the way there! I can't wait to see this thing completed.

Lars,

I was passing your house the other day on my way to see Sadie, and your mom was sitting on the porch steps, her face in her hands, tears running through the gaps between her fingers. She didn’t see me ‘cause I ran, and that night, I dreamt of you.

The sickening crack as your head landed against that stone.

The stillness of your chest against my hand.

I know you said that I saved you. I know you said that it wasn’t on me. I know. I know. I know.

But... I’m sorry, Lars.

I’m so, so sorry.


	11. Symbols

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : For the prompt thing, I think it'd be amazing to see some adorable YD/Steven interactions

Blue teaches him about his burgeoning powers, warm with him (in a way she had never quite been with Pink). And Yellow instructs him in the more practical matters of being a Diamond, patient with him. (She had scarcely been so with his mother.) He’s sitting on the arm of her throne, practicing his Gem script, all harsh lines and severe shapes.

Taking a break from surveying her multitude of screens (bored), Yellow surreptitiously peers over his shoulder.

 _I_ , he has written clumsily.

 _love_ , he has scratched out.

 _y_ —

Steven whirls around, laughs at her bewildered expression.

“Hey, no peeking!”


	12. Lobotomy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Can you do something about the horrors White Pearl has suffered because of White Diamond?

Pink Pearl is but magenta light inside of her gem when the tendrils come—blinding and tentacular, writhing over all of her vulnerable places.

She loves to sing, her voice high and melodious—like one of those avians Pink adores.

 _You are White Pearl,_ the tendrils seethe, white hot. _You will serve._

She likes picking flowers: hibiscuses, orchids, and blossoms—likes threading them through her Diamond’s hair.

 _You are White Pearl._ The tendrils sink into her core, excavating it, eradicating _her_. _You will serve._

She is…?

She likes to…?

_I’m sorry, Pink! I’m—_

She is… White Pearl.

She will serve.

 


	13. Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Blue Diamond's grief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for suicidal ideation.
> 
> (I have a headcanon that shortly after Pink was 'shattered,' Blue poofed herself as a means of coping. When she reformed, she reformed with those dark circles under her eyes. I definitely want to write about it in full someday.)

Titan’s Drop.

Elevated at 989 units, it is the tallest waterfall on Homeworld.

She stands on its precipice, solemn, purposeful—hands clasped in a temple next to her stomach.

The black waters seethe below her, spewing out of the rock like clotted blood.

“ _Please_ ,” Yellow begs, her voice hoarse, sieved of all its edges. The other Diamond is just behind her, almost close enough to touch. “Please don’t do this, Blue.”

“I’ll return in a decade.” _Or so._

“That’s too damn long!”

“But is it really?”

Millennia upon millennia could pass, but Blue Diamond will never be the same again.


	14. Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Blue Diamond adopts a pet human.

She plucks him from the zoo in the very way a hawk would descend upon a worm.

Zee Seven.

A human.

His hair is obsidian black, drawn down his back in a thick braid.

“What makes you so special?” She murmurs, more to herself than him. He shivers before her throne—dull and dumb and mute, his forehead beaded with sweat. “Why did she want to preserve your species so badly?”

He does not reply.

She frowns, wonders if this one is broken.

“You’re rather ugly,” she muses, “but she wanted you… and I can’t… I can’t begrudge her that.”


	15. Similarities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Blue Diamond+Connie for a prompt XD

Blue Diamond’s palace is ornate, drenched in the very color of her gem and just as brilliant—but Connie doesn’t have time to admire the scenery, not when Steven’s just been kidnapped.

_Again._

Distracted, she frustrates the shimmering tiles.

Distracted, she doesn’t realize that she has engaged the matriarch’s attention until her cool voice drifts down to her from some forty feet above.

“You’re anxious for her, too,” she observes, and Connie stops in her tracks, tilts her head skywards and tries not to swallow. 

“You sound surprised, ma’am.”

The Diamond's laugh is strangled.

“I am all bewilderment, little human.”


	16. Witch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Lapis and Greg interacting post-Reunited. (They both care about Steven, of course, and are both on Earth while Steven goes to Homeworld; but I also wonder how Lapis would react to Greg's "Water Witch" sketch, and to the song Steven helped him write in "The Message"?)

Lapis is shuffling through debris when she finds it: a bent sketchbook, full of her.

 _Water Witch_ , the first rendering names her. Lips snarled in wrath, she summons Beach City’s waters into the sky.

Lapis does not recognize the villainess in the picture.

(She doesn’t want to face her.)

She shuts her eyes against the rising, dizzying panic and then flinches when a hand lands on her shoulder—big and warm.

Greg, his whole body an uncomfortable apology.

“That’s not you, kiddo!” he pleads. “I was wrong!”

 _Diamonds to stars_ , she thinks disbelievingly.

But can witches ever change their spots?


	17. Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ that prompt for BD and Connie made me remember I need more Connie/Diamond interactions in my life; so how about YD and Connie for a prompt?

“How do we quell an uprising, Steven?”

The question hangs in the air for a long moment as Steven chews on it, his dark brow knit together like a caterpillar.

“We, um, try our hardest to please everyone and hope for the best?”

“Wrong,” Yellow clucks, all affection. “Connie?”

The junior tactician puffs out her chest, eager to please. “We amass the dissenters and either intimidate or negotiate with them, ma’am!”

“Correct,” the Diamond nods approvingly, and Connie simply beams.

They think it’s a game, and why shouldn’t they?

They’re _children_.

(They don’t need to know about the shattering threats.)


	18. Useless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ I would love to see something about Yellow Pearl and/or Blue Pearl.

No matter what they do, they cannot please their Diamonds.

Yellow Diamond frowns and she paces and she seethes, her hands clenched behind her back as back and forth she goes, never satisfied, always angry.

“ _Go away!_ ” she snarls, and Pearl can only comply. Her chest is full of live wires, aching.

Blue Diamond sits in her throne for hours on end, a petrification in process. Her hollowed face is all but stone, alive only in the tears that seep down her face.

“ _Pink_ ,” she keens, and her Pearl can only watch.

She deserves to be harvested.

Useless creature.

Defective.

 


	19. Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ I want more Blue Diamond and Steven interactions, please !

He falls asleep in the palm of her hand, exhausted after a full cycle of making plans for the destruction of the human zoo.

Gazing down at him, she calls him Pink and then sternly corrects herself because that’s not his name.

“Steven,” Blue murmurs, “your name is Steven, and sometimes—oftentimes—I still do not... quite understand that.”

“ _But I want to._ I want to understand you. I want to love you. I want to atone for having not loved her enough.”

“I want to be present for you, Steven.”

He is peaceful in sleep, beautiful.

( _I will be._ )


	20. Distracted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Writer's Choice:_ Stevonnie and Garnet bond after training sessions with Pearl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 20/100! 
> 
> Thank you guys so much for helping me to realize this project into reality. Every Kudos, comment, and prompt has meant the world to me. I couldn't do it without y'all. <3

On Wednesdays afternoons, they train in the Sky Arena with Pearl, parrying Holo Pearl’s fierce thrusts and blows.

But the evenings belong to Garnet, to meditation and reflection, sometimes just to talking. The waves whisper against the shore, whisper secrets, whisper clandestine doubts.

“You were distracted today,” she says. It is a fact, not a condemnation. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Stevonnie closes their eyes tightly, trying and failing desperately not to think about the ‘B’ Connie made on her last science exam.

“Negative, chief,” they groan.

“That’s all right," Garnet only smiles. "Just know that I’m here.”


	21. Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ for your AO3 prompts, can you do zirconshipping and maybe some pearlmythest? im a sucker for fluff!
> 
> [The Pearlmethyst prompt will be in the next chapter!]

They reform within seconds of each other. 

Yellow Zircon is first—naturally—but Blue is not far behind, hands caught in her final flurry before Yellow Diamond.

“Forgive me! I—”

But there is no angry Diamond in sight.

Just Zircon, whose trademark haughtiness is smeared across her sharp features, backlit by the sickly lighting of their holding cell.

“Satisfied yet, traitor?” She sneers. “Now we’re both in trouble.”

But she is all talk and no bravado, Blue observes—all horror, a hand wringing mess.

“Nice to see you again, too,” she mutters, but not as unkindly as her counterpart deserves.


	22. Music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ for your AO3 prompts, can you do zirconshipping and maybe some pearlmythest? im a sucker for fluff!
> 
> [And here's the Pearlmethyst prompt!]

Pearl hums quietly as she kneads the dough, her ivory knuckles moving in time with the rhythm of her high, lilting voice.

It’s an old song from the eighties, Amethyst recalls. Some sweet love ballad rife with clichés about heart and soul and other mushy stuff.

Amethyst can’t help herself, doesn’t even try. She nudges Pearl’s arm, grins up at her like a cheshire cat.

“Not gonna lie, P, I had you pegged as a Mozart over Madonna kind of gem.”

Pearl laughs, nudges her right back. “Don’t you remember my eighties variant leg warmers, Amethyst? I had _some_ taste.”


	23. Petulance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Young Blue and Yellow being brats?

The grand matriarchs of Homeworld, supposed pinnacles of gemkind, argue all the way back to Blue’s chambers.

“Dammit, Blue,” Yellow growls, her hair electric with her growing frustration. “You know very well I wanted to colonize that planet. Those sandstone gorges were perfect for growing Quartzes.”

Blue doesn’t bequeath her counterpart with so much as a cold glance, the heavy fabric of her robes sweeping quickly along the floor.

“Yes, but you neglected to stake your claim with White,” she returns. “I _did_. Therefore, I win.”

“Pedantic nag!”

“Overzealous clod.”

(Trailing behind them, their Pearls cannot quite conceal their smiles.)


	24. Reaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ something with Lars and Ronaldo?

Strangely enough, Ronaldo takes the news like a champ.

 _Ronaldo_ , who once broke his wrist trying to snap a picture of a ghost that turned out to be a plastic bag caught in a tree.

That Ronaldo.

“You were dead.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But because of Steven’s magical alien powers, you’re alive again, and, like… pink?”

“Yeaaaaaah,” he flushes, shrugging a gloved hand across the back of his neck. “Something like that.”

Ronaldo lets out a deep breath, his broad chest deflating like a balloon. 

“Holy shit, dude.”

Lars thinks he might crack one of his undead ribs.

Holy shit indeed.


	25. Mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ I'd love to see Blue and/or Yellow Diamond start to question the dictatorship structure of Homeworld, or to see them start to repent a little (if you think that's in character for either or both of them!)

They are entangled on Blue’s divan, her golden chin buried against cerulean neck, her gloved hand resting on soft belly where thick fabric has pooled.

(Even dictators have to rest, too.)

“Blue?”

“Yes, Yellow?”

“Steven doesn't think too highly of our court practices. He told me as much today.”

The Diamond stiffens against her chest, stone now, where she had once been warm flesh.

“He informed me of his misgivings as well.”

“And?”

“And I was at a loss for words… I told him that he didn’t know any better.”

These lines are hauntingly familiar.

Old mistakes in new places.

 


	26. Destroy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Blue Diamond reconsiders her Court. (for reference, that's Ruby, Sapphire, Garnet, Blue Pearl and/or Lapis)

They are all so cold.

Her creations.

Her gems.

Her court.

When they kneel before her—Rubies, Sapphires, and indiscriminate Pearls—their faces are etched in stone, saying nothing and betraying even less.

They are not in her likeness anymore.

Not in this age where Diamonds can be shattered like the common rank and file.

 _No_ —Blue Diamond wants to watch the world burn, piece by ugly piece.

She incubates a new species in salt.

Terraformers.

Slender but powerful, they can summon hurricanes if they so desire.

She names them Lapis Lazuli.

She tells them they are made to destroy.


	27. Clod

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Yellow Diamond and any Crystal Gem(s), about Peridot, post-Reunited. ("CLOD")

The Quartz scoops that mouthy Peridot out of the sand with a tenderness that surprises Yellow Diamond.

There’s a familiarity in the movement that doesn’t quite befit the hierarchical constructions of her court. The Quartz is undersized, yes, but she still has precedence over the Peridot, given the Peridot’s own deficiencies.

The Diamond is curious, irate that she’s curious, and very simply enough, _irate_.

“You, Quartz.”

The gem looks up, button nose wrinkling, glare openly defiant.

(Rebel riffraff.)

Yellow bulldozes on anyway. “What’s so significant about that Peridot?”

“Well...” she grins, insolence reconciled, “homegirl _did_ call you a clod once.”


	28. Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ hey can you write human pearlmethyst going to the club or somethin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to make a minor adjustment to this prompt and keep them as gems—my apologies!

Ten people.

Five people.

Four.

The line to the bouncer is growing smaller with each passing second. Pearl is thankful that she doesn’t possess a stomach, thinks she might have been sick all over her flats if she did. And irritated though she is at a glowing Amethyst, she is glad for her warm hand, how her lavender palm fits perfectly in her own.

“This isn’t a good idea, Amethyst,” she says for the twentieth time since the night began.

“Haha, it’s _definitely_ not, but you need this, P. Trust me.”

“IDs?”

Amethyst procures the (faked) cards with a flourish.


	29. Messages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : If you're still taking prompts, can I please request some Blue Pearl/Yellow Pearl? I swear there needs to be more SFW work of them.

Court drags on—Peridots asking for better assignments, Agates complaining about Quartzes, and Quartzes complaining about Agates—the usual fare. Yellow Pearl has long given up proper stenography, just as her Diamond has long given up the appearance of proper decorum. She yells, and Pearl doodles until a blinking light on her interface tells her that she’s just received a message.

_Has Yellow Diamond concluded her session yet?_

_No—some dull Rutile started my lustrous Diamond on a rant about mining efficiencies. End my torture and poof me, Blue._

_And deprive you of such a scintillating spectacle? No way._

**_Clod._ **


	30. Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Writer's Choice:_ Sardonyx navigates the tentative bridge between Pearl and Garnet after "Friend Ship."

Garnet’s palms begin to glow.

Pearl’s forehead does the same.

Red light snakes around their entangled limbs, and Sardonyx opens all four of her eyes.

She is not in a desperate situation where walls are closing around her like a vice.

Nor is she celebrating Steven’s first fusion with a gem.

Rather, in-between these two extremes, she is sitting cross-legged on the beach, watching the dark waves slap the moonlit sand.

The boundary between sea and shore is thin.

The boundary between breaking and remaining together is even thinner.

“Is this okay?” she whispers.

“Maybe,” she eventually replies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 30/100!
> 
> Thanks for all your support, friends—it makes working on this project one of the greater joys of my week. c:
> 
> _Some quick notes about prompts:_
> 
> (1) I have this rlly weird goal of getting all of the letters of the alphabet somewhere in the titles, so if you have a word prompt for the following letters, that'd be awesome: A, B, E, I, J, N, O, Q, V, X, Y, and Z.  
> (2) As we move forward, I'd love to tackle some rarer characters/pairs/relationships in these prompts, so if there's someone or some coupling that you'd like to see, definitely feel free to send them in. (Of course, mainstream characters and pairs will always be fine as well!)


	31. Supernova

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Yellow watching baby pink while blue is away on another planet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Blue's away, Yellow takes Pink on life-altering field trips, so she can develop a solid grasp on existentialism.

At the very edge of the universe, two Diamonds sit side by side, one old and one new, eyes alight with the explosion of a star. Pink has never seen a more brilliant sight.

“This supernova happened approximately 3,000 lightyears ago,” Yellow explains with a wave of gloved hand. “I’ve been tracking it for awhile now, and it’s just now safe for us to approach.”

“It’s gorgeous,” she whispers, nose pressed against the curving glass. “Thanks for showing me, Yellow!”

“I thought you should see what it looks like… just once.”

“Hm?”

“Death,” Yellow murmurs. “Something we will never know.”


	32. Mystery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ How do you feel about Last One Out of Beach City from Mystery Girl’s POV?

She’d started the night hoping that Mike Krol’s dulcet tones would be enough to take her mind off the breakup, but she ends the night with a different kind of distraction: the allure of this crazy chick who is currently babbling on about saving the universe.

Maybe she’s a hippie.

Which is, like, cool.

“Got a pen?” She grins. “I have paper.”

“Mmm, let me check.” The girl rummages around the pockets of her jacket and procures one, delicate features awash in blush.

“Nice."

Sabina scribbles her number down but neglects to add her name.

Mysteries can be attractive creatures.


	33. Procreation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Hey prompt you could do is bellow diamond were they both decide they may have feelings for each other then decide to have pink

They are ten thousand years old, and they have long learned every groove in each other’s bodies.

The spiny nature of Yellow’s knuckles, miniature mountains gilded in gold.

The curve of Blue’s hips, like perfectly formed waves, cresting and then falling.

These little knowledges gather like leaves on a tree, a collection of quiet intimacies.

Blue wants more, though.

(They both do.)

“White would never go for it.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I don’t,” Yellow concedes, grimacing, “but I can make an educated guess.”

“ _She_ created us—why can we not create for ourselves?”

Yellow’s objections cake on her tongue.


	34. Emergence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Hey i loved shattered and for my prompt what about bellow and getting baby pink

 

She emerges in a burst of brilliant light.

But there is nothing brilliant about the planet she is born into.

It is a gray, wasted place, leeched of all color and life.

A consequence of her own parasitism.

But she is only seconds old.

She doesn’t know that.

Rather, she knows precisely two things:

 _One_ —her name is Pink Diamond, and in the hierarchy of the universe, she will one day sit upon a throne.

 _Two_ —that throne may be but dust and ashes because she is completely and utterly al—

“Oh, _Yellow._ ”

Pink startles at the sound.

“She’s beautiful.”


	35. Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ I would love to a prompt were yellow raised connie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies—I had to deviate from this prompt! For "Fragments" pieces, I'm mostly taking canonical prompts or AUs that could conceivably happen _in_ canon. So how about some Yellow and Connie bonding time? c:

“Connie?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

Yellow Diamond’s golden gaze slides down to her right shoulder where she’s perched. They’re watching the sunset together, watching the sky set itself on fire.

“You once told me that I reminded you of your mother.”

“Mmm... yes?”

“What does that mean exactly?”

 _Oh_ , she smiles. _That’s an easy one._

“You’re harsh and exacting,” she says unsparingly, never one to mince words, “and it’s hard for you to tell the someones you love that you love them. Mom’s like that, too, sometimes...”

“...but I’ve learned that that’s okay. She loves in the best ways she knows how.”


	36. Beauty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ I know I already got one in, but since you're on 'relationships that don't seem to get much attention anymore', how about something between Pearl and the Mystery Girl/Sheena/possibly Sabina?

They’ve long abandoned a close viewing of _Lonely Blade 2.5_ —sorry, Steven—just to talk.

It’s a little bit of everything, and it’s a whole lot of nothing, but whether she’s extolling the virtues of Estelle’s new album or articulating her dissatisfaction about local politics, Sabina is _enrapturing_ , a whirlwind of passionate gestures, a canvas of many colors.

The green of her searching eyes.

The pinkish blush that has scribbled itself along the bridge of her nose.

The ruddy birthmark on her chin—only visible when she tilts her head back to laugh.

 _You’re beautiful,_ she almost blurts out. _Extraordinary._


	37. Guilty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ I'd love to see our Pearl interact with Yellow Pearl and/or Blue Pearl.

Court has not yet begun, so why does Pearl feel as though she is on trial?

They stare at her from their adjacent daises, as though waiting for her to argue the case for her existence.

And perhaps they very well should.

By all means, she should have never been formed.

“She’s uglier than Pink was,” Yellow Pearl sniffs, shattering the heavy silence. “Too plain, and her colors clash.”

“You’re being harsh,” Blue scolds, the hands she has clasped below her skirt her unspoken judgment. “It isn’t _her_ fault.”

They squabble on.

Pearl remains a spectator to her own condemnation.


	38. Eternity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ yellow and blue taking care of a baby pink

She can’t stop thinking about her.

That Rutile who grabbed the hem of Blue’s robes and asked to be harvested.

She had lived six thousand years too long, she whispered.

Shatter her and resurrect her shards.

And Blue Diamond, ever merciful, obliged.

Pink can’t get the image out of her head, how her ruby pieces stained the ground.

“Some gems weren’t meant for longevity,” Blue murmurs, running tall fingers through her fluffy hair.

The gesture is nice and soothing and a _rarity_.

Pink leans into the touch.

“Eternity stretches on,” Yellow agrees, “but you’re young. Don’t learn that lesson yet.”


	39. Freckles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Something with a bunch of Homeworld Lapis Lazulis.

Lapis Lazuli, Facet 9, Cabochon 10K, has exactly ninety-eight golden freckles. They clamber down her shoulders and wrap around her elbows. They scatter like stars across her cheeks and stumble over the bridge of her nose.

They disgust her.

Every single one of them.

She can only hover inches off the ground.

Lapis Lazuli, Facet 5, Cabochon 8J, only has twenty-two freckles. They trail down her exposed back like a long ribbon.

She likes creating little ponds.

She once poofed herself trying to make a lake.

Lapis Lazuli, Facet 1, Cabochon 3A, turns Beach City into a wasteland.


	40. Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Writer's Choice:_ Vidalia makes a phone call to Greg after Marty skips town.

The ringback tone stretches on for what seems like an eternity, and she thinks she’s liable to scream or puke one if Greg doesn’t answer his damn phone.

Marty skipped town two weeks ago, and she’s three days late.

Mom’s going to kill her.

“Yello’?” God, Universe would be the type of person to say _yello’_.

“Hey… it’s Vidalia.”

“Oh, hey, kid! What’s up?” But he’s also the type of guy to help a gal out.

“I’m _freaking_ out, dude. I… I–” She can’t go on.

But Greg’s… _Greg_. He picks up the pieces.

“Hold on. I’m on my way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 40/100!
> 
> As always, thank you guys so much for sticking with me through this journey.


	41. Transformation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Blue reconsiders her court 2.0.
> 
> [That said, if you want to try again, let me try rewording the prompt so it's a little clearer; something like "Blue Diamond considers how her court has grown without her", or maybe "...beyond her" would work better?. The idea was that the Diamonds (in this case Blue) are these monolithic, perfect, unchanging beings, whereas their creations were made for a purpose but have evolved to become something more (at least some of them have, anyway). And if your starting point is "perfect", how can you grow beyond that? (Bonus points if it somehow ties into this chapter)]

Lapis Lazuli, Facet 1, Cabochon 3A is creating little waves in the water for Steven to swim upon.

Slender hands poised above the foam.

Head thrown back in a laugh that is lost to the wind.

Abandon.

Happiness.

Joy.

These emotions have long been alien to Blue Diamond.

She had wished to inflict her same fate on an entire species.

She failed. 

When the wave troughs, Steven collapses into Lapis’s arms, giggling. They are a tangle of affection, and _she_ is an impossibility, an unprecedented variation, a miracle.

She has grown.

Changed.

Blue Diamond wishes she could say the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece is a spiritual successor to both [Destroy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15949364/chapters/37913876) and [Freckles,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15949364/chapters/38266019) but more or less a reconfiguration of the prompt that led to "Destroy." I didn't quite get it right the first time, but CountMohawk's beautiful elaboration of what would make it right inspired me to give it another go. c:


	42. Coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Yellow Diamond and the best thing on Earth to her (minus Pink ofc.)

Fairly sure that Yellow Diamond _isn’t_ sensitive to scalding temperatures, Steven is careful not to slosh a drop of the fifty liter drum on her outstretched hand anyway as he stumbles between the lines of her expansive palm.

She chuckles—a deep, rumbling sound incongruent with the frown usually slashed across her sharp features—and lifts him up to her chin.

“Black coffee,” Steven explains. “Dr. Maheswaran—Connie’s mom—swore it was the best thing on Earth.”

“Interesting,” she only hums, “but I’m afraid that appellation already belongs to someone else.”

Her smile is wry, her eyes golden and melting.


	43. Obviously

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Pink, Yellow, and Blue Diamond are attacked by an unknown space being.

Obviously, the planetoid that comes with its own seventy foot long leviathan is not a suitable location for Pink Diamond to colonize.

 _Obviously_ , Yellow thinks as she unthinkingly propels herself onto the monster’s serpentine head, wrapping her arms around its jaws to keep it from spitting venom onto her companions.

 _Obviously_ , Blue moans, torn between wanting to tell Yellow that she had told her so and running back to the ships. She settles on pushing Pink behind her with one hand and summoning crackling energy with the other.

 _Obviously_ , Pink grins, rather satisfied that this latest catastrophe isn’t on her.


	44. Hurt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Would love to see something focused on Dr. Maheswaran!

Now Priyanka Maheswaran has never had a best friend sacrifice himself to aliens on the guise that he’s his own mother, only to return and pretend like everything is normal... but she has been hurt before, and she knows that there is nothing so readily palliative _for_ hurt than a pint of ice cream and an awful movie to mercilessly criticize.

“That movie sucked,” Connie says when the screen fades to black.

“Agreed. Interesting idea, poor execution.”

A pause—quiet, angry, sad.

“This whole situation sucks.”

Priyanka pulls her daughter close.

“Agreed.”

It was an interesting idea, Universe.

Poor execution.


	45. Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Well, as for characters, I would love to see something with Skinny Jasper and Carnelian..

It’s not uncommon that sniffling sounds punctuate off hours in the Quartz barrack. Gems missing Earth. Gems recovering from a Holly Blue lashing. Gems indulging in their star given right to despise themselves.

But dammit—it’s an outright rarity to hear Carnelian join in on the nightly boohoo.

 _Carnelian_ , who’s always been so outgoing that Skinny used to hate her for it.

But that was then.

Now, she wraps a lanky arm around the gem’s shoulders and holds her while she cries.

“She kicked me, SJ— _kicked me_. Said I should’a been shattered.”

“Screw her—your life, ours, _mean_ something.”


	46. Question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ And for a prompt letter, maybe, ‘Question’? As in, like, maybe someone asks someone else a question that is heavy/major/intense/something like that? That would take care of ‘Q’..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double posting today because I'm going to try to get "Flower Child" out tomorrow. c:

In the pink room, he conjures up his mother.

Not as he has always known her.

Not as Rose Quartz.

But as the Diamond she once was; they share a smile, the dictator and the rebel.

They are each other’s deepest secret.

“You’re not real,” Steven whispers. “I won’t fall into that trap again… I just wanted to see you with my own eyes and not through Pearl’s memories.”

The illusion tilts her head, brow furrowed.

“If I am not real, then what am I, Steven?”

Dictator.

Rebel.

Mother.

Liar.

Lover.

Friend.

Protector.

( _Who are you?_ )

Gone.

“I don’t know.”


	47. Appreciate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Greg is under-appreciated on this show. If you're looking for an "A" prompt, you can do "A" for "Appreciate"! The other character(s) can be any Gem other than Rose, up to and including the Diamonds!

“We trusted her, and she lied to us, and I—” Ruby stops pacing the cliffside, cradles her head in her hands.

“…I dunno what to do anymore. I’m not… Garnet. I can’t… see.”

“Join the rest of us,” Greg smiles.

“Eh?”

“That’s the thing,” he laughs. “We all don’t know what we’re doing. We’re all blind! It’s just a part of life that you and Sapphire have denied yourselves for thousands of years as Garnet.”

“It’s _okay_ not to know?”

“Yup.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Belief is a scary ravine to jump.

Ruby jumps anyway.

“Thanks, Greg… I appreciate that.”

 


	48. Zoo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Do you still want a prompt in Z ? I suggest you "zoo", for a Blue and Greg drabble on the way to the zoo.

Manacled below her throne, the poor human struggles against his salvation, shouting and squirming and leaking fluid from his olfactory apparatus.

“You’ve gotta let me go, your Majesty! _Please_ —I have a son. He needs me! _I_ need him!”

“Sun?”

Surely he isn’t emotionally attached to a celestial object, right?

No, no that can’t be it.

“Do you mean offspring?”

“Yes, that! I have an offspring I have to get back to!”

“Oh, is that all?” Blue Diamond’s smile is understanding. “Don’t worry, little human. You can have plenty of offspring in the zoo.”

They have an excellent breeding program.


	49. Apologize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ (a very desperate) YD trying to get advice from Peridot on how to understand her kid

Chin in her hands, rear end appropriating a ledge in the cliff, Yellow Diamond teeters the line between intimidating and pathetic.

Not that Peridot’ll ever admit that to her.

(Her glare alone could petrify a gem.)

“I just don’t understand him sometimes,” the Diamond huffs. “How was I supposed to know he’s sensitive to criticism?”

“If I may interject, my Dia”—she stops herself in the middle of the old habit—“Yellow… Steven is rather in touch with his emotions. You should… apologize.”

“It’s an absurd concept for me.”

“I’m aware.”

“But,” she sighs, “for him, I’m willing to try.”


	50. Shells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Writer's Choice:_ Bismuth and Garnet talk about Steven.

Sitting on the stairs leading up to the beach house, Bismuth and Garnet brush shoulders in the gentle night. They joke about this, and they recollect that, and they skirt around the topic of Rose because it’s just too painful, but mostly, they talk about Steven.

“Tell me a story about him,” Bismuth says. “Something I missed.”

(She missed a lot.)

“When he was younger, we would collect shells on the beach. I held the bucket and tried to dissuade him from picking up broken ones—little, fragmented pieces. Even then, he told me that those were worth saving, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The big 50/100—halfway there, you guys! Thank you so much for your support on "Fragments." It's been such a fun project to work on, somewhat because I get to spend huge portions of my week writing for a show that I love, and mostly because I have awesome readers like you who get my creative gears going with your prompts and insightful comments. Half of this project is your continued input and collaboration, your cleverness and your kindness. <3
> 
>  _Some further notes:_  
>  → Happy Halloween! Stay safe if you're going Trick-or-Treating tonight.  
> → Including writer's choice prompts, I have 23 prompts on my list right now, which will take us up to #71. So if you've prompted something, and it hasn't appeared yet, just know that I haven't forgotten you, lol.  
> → Missing Letters: I, J, N, V, X, Y  
> → Still looking for rare character/pair prompts. c: I'd love for "Fragments" to encapsulate a whole array of people and gems and situations at its conclusion.


	51. Bookclub

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Could we maybe see some Connie and BLUE Diamond, too, please?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late post!

From giant alien eels to gems who can absorb humans with their bodies, Connie has seen _tons_ of weird stuff since she became friends with Steven… but she’s gotta admit, watching a (roughly) human-sized Blue Diamond perusing her copy of _The Libation Bearers_ takes the cake.

An ageless space goddess.

Curled up on the couch.

 _Reading_ _a book_.

“Absolutely ludicrous,” Blue Diamond murmurs.

“Hm?” Connie puts her own book down, glad for the excuse to openly stare at her companion.

“Clytemnestra deserved better! She was _avenging_ her daughter!

Connie giggles.

“I had a sneaking suspicion you might like her.”


	52. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : Steven and Connie reuniting after Steven was taken by White Pearl and White Diamond, having an emotional conversation

Connie pulls back from the embrace but doesn’t quite let go, hands still tangled around his neck, eyes drinking in every part of him—his dark eyes, his dimpled smile, the stray curl that falls onto his forehead. 

(She’s afraid he’ll disappear if she so much as blinks.)

“You can’t keep doing this to me, Steven!” she chokes out. “You were here, and then you were gone, and I was scared, and I _missed_ you.”

“Um,” he stammers blushingly, “at least I didn’t sacrifice myself this time?”

“Small consolation,” Connie can’t help but laugh, “but I _suppose_ I’ll take it.”


	53. Interrogation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : Could i request something with aquamarine and lapis arguing over dumb stuff?

_**LOG #11037** _

**Informant:** Lapis Lazuli, Facet 1, Cabochon 3A

 **Interrogator:** Aquamarine, Facet 1, Cabochon 10B

— 

 **Aquamarine:** I think you’re lying to me, Lapis Lazuli. I think you saw something on Earth that we should know about. I think you’re obfuscating the truth to… protect something.

 **Lapis:** _[The Lapis crosses her arms, gaze averted.]_ …

 **Aquamarine:** Cat’s Eye got your tongue, Lazuli? Refute me. Have a go at me. Anything. _Please._ I haven’t had a _real_ challenge in _ages._

 **Lapis:** …

 **Aquamarine:** Stars, what a waste. You sat at the right hand of our god once upon a time. What happened to you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can anyone guess where that log number came from? ;)


	54. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ There could be a prompt of rose and Greg having the biggest fight.

Garnet doesn’t see Rose Quartz in their baby’s future.

Rather, she sees her _gem_ embedded in its tubby, little belly, sees tears leaking down Pearl’s nose, sees Greg alone—all alone—sees darkness and indecision and fear.

And Rose, hearing all of this, doesn’t so much as blink.

And Greg, searching her dark eyes, realizes that she’d known this would happen all along.

“I should have told you,” she says quietly when they are finally alone.

Alone.

He’s going to be _alone_.

“You should have,” he returns, “but you were never going to, were you? You knew I’d never agree.”


	55. Logic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ there could be a prompt about peridot and lapis finally telling each other how they feel.

“We make tactical sense together,” Peridot begins with a dismissive wave of her shaking hand. “You’re obviously incredibly powerful and superiorly designed, whereas I’m admittedly not... but I make up for those physiological deficiencies with my unparalleled capacity for advanced thinking and logic.”

“Um...”

“Additionally,” she stumbles on, “if we formed a cohesive unit, I believe we would model the perfection which is Percy and Pierre. They both have their disadvantages, yes, but paired together, they balance each other out. They complete each other, and I, um… I—”

Lapis Lazuli captures Peridot’s hand.

Smiles.

“I like you too, you dork.”


	56. Push

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ This prompt could be stupid but mystery girl and pearl after last one out of beach city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not stupid at all! I love MysteryPearl.

On their first date, they go hiking; they traipse through the forest at the edges of Beach City in search of nothing and everything all at the same time.

They’re learning about each other.

Pearl sneaks a glance while they’re ducking through undergrowth, and Sabina notices, flashes her a wry grin.

They’re flirting.

“To tell you the truth,” she says, “I didn’t think you’d call… what made you change your mind?”

(Amethyst pressing the call button and keeping it out of Pearl’s reach until it was too late.)

Pearl’s smile is soft, fond.

“A friend gave me a little push.”


	57. Poofed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : Poof is a very informal word for a destructive happening. I think the word they use on homeworld would be more along the lines of Discorporation. Got anything in ya' about the difference in jargon between homeworld and earth?

“Nyeh,” Peridot mutters in-between ice cream licks. “Lazuli needs to hurry up. It’s been eons.”

“Pearl said to be patient,” Steven reminds her dully. “Lapis probably hasn’t been poofed very many times before.”

That catches the gem’s attention.

She looks up, frowns.

“Poofed?”

“Yeaaaah, you know— _poofed_. When Yellow Diamond zapped ya, she, uh, poofed you.”

“Oh, right… _that._ ”

She assumes that “poofing” is a bandaid word that the Crystal Clods gave Steven, a softened blow, a coping mechanism.

(Fine. Whatever. Coddle the kid.)

On Homeworld, they call it disincorporation.

You’re torn down to your component part.

You’re destroyed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just letting you guys know that I'm closing prompts temporarily! I have 30+ prompts in the queue, which will take us up to 91!!! I want to reserve those last couple of slots for some pointed prompts on your behalves. c:
> 
> As always, thanks for sticking with this collection.


	58. Fighter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ If you are still looking for prompts, what about how did Pearl learn how to sword fight?

“And pray tell, why should we imbue a Pearl with extensive knowledge of fighting?” Underneath her rippling hood, Blue Diamond’s lips gather into the beginnings of a frown. “She’ll be programmed to sacrifice herself anyway. Her own body will be a shield as she intercepts any conceivable threat.”

“That system works well enough for _us_ , yes,” Yellow counters, “but Pink is different. Her size could be disadvantageous. She’s emotional; she could _very well_ be emotionally compromised. She needs a capable line of defense.”

“The Pearl won’t last long,” Blue hums, skeptical, unconvinced.

“We can always make her a new one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Askgfjlslgjl. This was originally going to be a fluffy Pearlrose piece, but then my angst brain was, like, _determinism._
> 
> Also, "Fragments" is two months old today!!


	59. Drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Does only Pearl drive?

“Alright, Garnet, in order to start the car, you simply have to turn the key in the ignition.”

“Like this?”

“Excellent! I know you’re nervous, but there’s honestly nothing to this!”

“Now what?”

“This stick is the gearshift. It allows you to control whether the car is moving or not. We’re currently in Park, so what you’re going to do next is guide the stick downwards to Drive and— _wait! Not so hard! Gaaaaarnet!_ ”

“I panicked.”

“I know, Garnet.”

“Sorry.”

“I know, Garnet.”

“Don’t tell Amethyst.”

Pearl’s lips twitch.

The newly detached gearshift sparks blue in Garnet’s clenched fist.

“Never.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is crack, but I stand by it anyway. Happy Birthday, "Fragments."


	60. Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Writer's Choice:_ Jasper and Lapis share nightmares.

Jasper dreams of, Lapis dreams of—I dream of? We?

 _Someone_ dreams of a battlefield of shards.

Jasper cannot take a step in any direction without being caked in our fallen comrades, her friends, my companions. I look down at my palms. They are orange, blue; they are a sickly, mottled green.

They are enshrouded in pink dust.

My Diamond. Her Diamond. _Pink Diamond._

Lapis dreams of, Jasper dreams of—I dream of a sickening crack in the darkness.

Our gem, hers—erupts down its middle.

I am bisected.

_Crack._

She is eroding.

_Crack._

(We are Malachite.)

We are gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 60/100!!!


	61. Cooking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ how the gems learned to cook for kid Steven.

In the week leading up to Steven’s arrival at the newly completed house, Pearl… socializes with humans.

On Monday, she goes to Fish Stew Pizza, where Nanafua’s gnarled hands teach her how to shape homemade dough.

On Tuesday, she drops by the Fry Shack, and Mr. Fryman demonstrates how to… well… _fry_ various things _—_ which is objectively disgusting, but she digresses.

On Wednesday, she watches carefully as Vidalia somehow whips up a beautiful omelette in five minutes top.

“Listen, lil’ alien lady,” she grins, sharklike, triumphant, “if you can save the world, you can sure as hell cook an egg.”


	62. Parenting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Connie's mom and the gems relationships... what did she said to Pearl and Greg about teaching her little girl fencing?

They sit side by side in the Sky Arena, Greg and Priyanka—two parents whose children have inherited an intergalactic war.

Steven blocks Holo Pearl’s thrust, allowing Connie to roll under his shield and slash the hologram at its knees.

It shatters in a burst of static.

“I can hardly stand this,” Priyanka murmurs. Her hands are in her lap, clenching at the fabric of her khakis. “She’s good—excellent even. I just…”

“It’s hard,” Greg agrees. “We swore to protect them, but they’re out there protecting themselves.”

“They’re growing up,” she whispers.

On the battlefield, Connie’s smile is triumphant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about not including Pearl! It was a bit more organic for me to let this play out between Greg and Priyanka.


	63. Inconsistencies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ It would be fun to see Blue Zircon interact with Steven again post-Legs from Here to Homeworld now that she and everyone else know that Steven is Pink Diamond.

“I hated you, you know.”

“Huh?”

Zircon’s smile is fond, wry; it twinkles in her cerulean eyes.

“When I was assigned to your case,” she explains, “all of my ambitions were ruined. I was rising in the Zircon ranks. I had a near impeccable record.”

“Oh, um, sorry about that.”

But Zircon only shakes her head.

“I hated you,” she whispers, “and then I suddenly didn’t… because you made me realize something.”

“What?”

“If _one_ trial could be riddled with inconsistencies, then Homeworld itself could never be perfectly judicious. You made me question the system, Steven. You set me free.”


	64. Phenomenon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ White diamond has a family reunion, and she WILL hold her grand child...damnit.

The lines between enemy and dictator and kind of, sorta grandmother are blurred, so they dance around each other—they hesitate, and they duck.

When White Diamond lowers her glowing palm to the ground, Steven swallows before he clambers on.

And even though she’s _sure_ Steven is secure, she is painstakingly meticulous anyway as she elevates him to chin level.

“You’re a phenomenon,” she whispers. “A conundrum, a statistical impossibility.”

“I _guess_ that’s true,” he returns softly, “but I’m also made of love.”

“My algorithms did not account for such a variable.”

“I know,” he smiles. “It was a wildcard.”


	65. Without

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ For the prompts, Culture of Homeworld before Blue and Yellow emerged.

Homeworld without Yellow Diamond is disorganized, a world of gray static—muted, formless, empty.

The rank and file look to their Diamond, that shining north star, and wonder if they are pleasing to her.

Wonder if her radiant likeness exists in them.

Wonder and wander and wonder.

(Without vision, gems perish.)

White Diamond wipes these prototypes away with a sigh.

Homeworld without Blue Diamond lacks fervor—that dangerous, delicious zeal.

Gems toil on because they are told to toil.

They praise their goddess.

(They are programmed to.)

Emotionless sycophants.

Fragile toys.

White Diamond shatters them to see if they’ll shriek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this piece rather reminded me of [Colors](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15949364/chapters/37271099)!


	66. Proposal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : Peri using rom-com techniques in an effort to woo Lapis!

Seven consecutive romantic comedies, two hours of prep time with Steven, and a cool thumbs up from Garnet later, Peridot is sure that her proposal is unlikely to fail.

Sure, Andy’s skywriting is… questionable… but with such little time and zero other contacts who know how to operate a plane, it’s the best she can do.

“You’re leading me into a trap,” Lapis deadpans.

“It’s not a trap, Lazuli.”

“It so is.”

“ _Isn’t,_ ” Peridot clucks, “and I can prove it—open your eyes.”

Against the sunset canvas, in fading smoke, Andy almost got it right.

_Will you muse with me?_


	67. Cats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : hi, could you please do one where Steven introduces the the diamonds to the concept of animals?, like cats or dogs?

“Cats,” Steven enunciates with the air of a patient schoolteacher. “This is Lion, who is, well, a lion, but he’s also a big cat!”

Attentive to the two Diamonds leaning against the cliffside—a sight Steven isn’t sure he’ll _ever_ get used to—Lion rumbles a cautious greeting.

“Oh,” Yellow hums, “I read a report on these... _cats_ once. Do you not hunt them for sport?”

“No!” He hesitates. “Not here at least, but…”

“I believe he’s domesticated, Yellow,” Blue offers in a manner she believes to be helpful. “Like a trophy.”

“Nope,” Steven sighs. “Where did I lose you?”


	68. Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : Gems (especially Peridot) tend to use the word "stars" in the same way we might use the word "God". So, something about the stars...?, whether reaching towards them, traveling among them, bringing them down to earth, or something else entirely.

The night is quiet, the barn asleep. Peridot tiptoes around Amethyst’s snoring form and slips through the crack in the large sliding door, where cool air rises to greet her.

Where the stars bloom like flowers in the sky—red, silver, and gold.

She drops to the ground, her knees groveling the dirt.

And she begins to cry.

She cries because she’s _here_.

Here, Earth.

Here, at this barn with a bunch of organic loving clods.

She cries because the stars are beautiful but distant and forbidding.

They are millions of lightyears away.

They are silent.

And she is lost.


	69. Corrupted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : One of the Diamonds gives a Gem as a gift to Steven; OR Steven offers a Gem to one of the Diamonds. Feel free to interpret "giving" a Gem in whatever way makes the most sense!

Beyond the purple veneer of the bubble, the gem inside is instantly recognizable to Yellow Diamond.

“She tried fusing with a corrupted gem,” Steven explains, gentle as he cradles the bubble, vulnerable.

“And it corrupted _her_?”

“Yeah…”

“Foolish gem,” Yellow hisses. “She was always too impulsive, too reckless.”

But Yellow folded her into her own court for _those_ very reasons.

She promised to bring Rose Quartz back on a silver platter.

She promised to avenge Pink Diamond.

“Even so, would you take her home anyway? Please?” He asks. “She hates it here.”

She nods slowly, hesitant to speak.

_I’m sorry._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late posting! I got sidetracked by a one-shot, lol.
> 
> Here's a triple post to make up for it!
> 
> Also, Happy Thanksgiving! Today, I'm incredibly grateful to you guys for being such amazing readers. Though "Fragments" is slowly winding down to its conclusion, the force of your love and support has only grown, and I'd be remiss to take that lightly. Thank you so much for going on this journey with me—I'm excited to see it through.


	70. Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Writer's Choice:_ Jenny tells Kiki a secret.

“Kiki?”

There’s something in Jenny’s voice that startles her from the till, something vulnerable and sad, something incongruous with her usual chill self.

She’s not about to ask if Kiki can cover her shift for the umpteenth time.

Her dark eyes distant, she doesn’t even look as though she’s thinking about this world at all.

“What’s up?” Kiki plays it casually, though; her sister wouldn’t appreciate coddling.

“I kissed someone last night... and I shouldn’t have.”

“That’s rough,” she sighs sympathetically. “Does he have a girlfriend or something?”

“Something like that,” Jenny murmurs. “They’re in love with a dead person.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 70/100!!!
> 
> (By the way, did anyone else get a subtle vibe between Jenny and Sadie in "The Big Show"?)
> 
> (Also, also, Larsadie is so inherently tragic now, lololol.)


	71. Vacation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : for the su prompts, maybe the Pearls being friends? bantering or helping each other somehow

Entrenched in servitude for thousands of years, the Diamonds’ Pearls are justifiably... _confused_ when they suddenly get vacation time as a part of Homeworld’s new reforms.

(“I don’t _want_ to participate in a union,” Yellow Pearl whines.)

But Pearl takes pity on them, grabs Blue Pearl by the hand and drags Yellow by her ruffled top—steals them away and barely promises to return them.

“You adore your Diamonds,” she says lightly, “and that’s fine— _I loved mine_ —but I want you to learn that there’s more to life than serving them—that there’s such a thing as loving yourselves.”


	72. Unfusing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : how about some Steven, Lars and Connie bonding

They’re having trouble unfusing.

“We just have to let go,” Stevonnie says, their dark brow flustered together. “It’s simple!”

“We’re not talking about monkey bars,” Stevonnie retorts. Their chin is scratched with stubble, though they’ve only been gone for mere hours ship time. “This is, like, metaphysical!”

“Is not!”

“Is too!”

“Do you even know what _metaphysical_ means?”

“Oh, jeez,” Lars sighs from the captain’s seat. “For someone so cool, you suck at emotions. Listen, you haven’t been alone in a very long time, and that’s scary, yeah... but it’s also _okay_.”

“Just take your time,” he grins. “We’ll wait.”


	73. Application

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Steven and maheswarans bonding

Steven doesn’t tell his dad that he’s applying for Delmarva Community College.

Heck, he doesn’t even tell the Gems.

(He’s afraid of disappointing them.)

(He desperately wants to make them proud.)

He pays twenty dollars for the application—why do applications cost money anyway?—and finds himself squished between Mr. and Mrs. Maheswaran at their dining room table one evening while Connie’s at tennis practice.

“Now how do we phrase _saved the world multiple times_ into an appropriate academic statement?” Doug asks, scratching his day old scruff.

“Easy,” Priyanka shrugs. “Extensive community service and volunteer work.”

“Ugh, nice one, honey.”


	74. Injection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Ooooh! I've got one for I. How about Injection?

On its spidery, mechanical legs, the gem drill teeters over to the bottom corner of the cliff, the last unfertilized location in Earth’s Prime Kindergarten.

Its position close to the ground isn’t... _optimal_ , especially for hefty gems like Quartzes, but one could say the same about any part of this canyon—that it isn’t optimal, that it has long been leeched of its functionality.

(Not that the drill cares.)

With its metallic pincers, it bores a hole into the rock, injects its solution into the newly made crevice.

Its consequence, its parasite, won’t see the sun for thousands of years.


	75. Gossip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ As for ideas, maybe some Lapis and Pearl bonding?

Lapis and Pearl clean up the rest of Thanksgiving before everyone else returns from Peridot’s gratuitous farm tour.

So... not particularly friends but not really enemies either, they find themselves sitting side by side in the grass, watching the sun sink low into the horizon.

“Homeworld doesn’t have sunsets like these.”

“Goodness,” Pearl laughs, “it barely has a _sun_ after we stripped it for parts.”

A slow grin unfolds across Lapis’s delicate features, lights her eyes with mischief.

“Rumor has it that Yellow Diamond herself had to do the job.”

“Indeed— _I_ was there when she returned with scorched armor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Let Lapis interact with someone besides Steven and Peridot 2k18.)
> 
> 75/100 feels like a milestone! One more quarter until "Fragments" is a whole! As always, thank you guys for your love and support on this fic. <3 It means the world to me.


	76. Afraid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Steven introduces someone to the joys of Cookie Cat.

He’s ‘fraid of Garnet.

She’s _nice_ … but she doesn’t talk to him, only stares at him when she thinks he’s not looking—but he really is, because it’s hard _not_ to notice her gaze.

Amethyst said not to be scared of her, though, said that she was an “emotional wuss.”

Not sure he knows what that means, he taps Garnet politely on the leg anyway, a Cookie Cat sandwich melting between his fingers.

“Hi… Garnet.”

“Hello, Steven.” Her gaze is impenetrable, her voice… _soft—_ which is encouraging.

He smiles shyly, all gapped teeth.

“Wanna share my Cookie Cat with me?”


	77. Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : One rare pair that I'm pretty fond of is LeggyxPadparadscha.

Try as she does to retrieve her entire squadron from space, Navy cannot recover the gem that that pesky _human_ called Leggy.

Because Captain Lars finds her first.

“Fluorite? Padparadscha? Whatcha thinking?” He asks the remaining members of his crew as the Ruby cowers before them, wide eyed and helpless. (It’s a _hard_ pass for Rhodonite and the Rutile twins.)

“Oh, Lars!” Padparadscha effuses. “We’re destined to save a Ruby from a horrible fate in space!”

“Ahhhhh, it’s true!” Ruby chimes in. “It was _terrible_!”

(Which is more than enough for Lars.)

“Bingo bongo, kiddos,” he chortles. “We’re keeping her.”

 


	78. Homesick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : I remember when Steven said in 'Letters to Lars' I think, that Lars never met Peridot, or something like that, so maybe you could write some interaction between Lars and Peri?;p

“Just checking in on—” Lars stops short, his cape settling around him like a sigh.

The smoking circuitboard long abandoned, Peridot is palming the nearest window with one hand, her wrench dangling limply in the other.

She’s looking at the stars, he quickly realizes—at all the nebulas and little asteroids and the galactic dust the color of Skittles.

(She’s revering them.)

“I once spent all my time traveling amongst these stars,” she says—not particularly to him. “I called them… _home_.”

The word scalds him where he stands.

(He misses his mom.)

“I’m sorry, Peridot.”

“Occasionally… I am too.”


	79. Jewelry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : J for jewelry. I can imagine it going highwire the first Time homeworl gems see jewelry with gemstones, would they freak out?

They make a date strolling around Beach City’s annual Art Festival, and Rose is enamored, in love, her eyes brimming with stars.

That is... until they reach a jewelry booth, where a vendor is selling homemade turquoise accessories.

“ _Greg!_ ” She suddenly tugs on his arm, nearly wrenching it from his socket.

“Agh!” He yelps. “What’s wrong?”

“That human is selling gems!”

Greg finds where she’s looking and immediately understands her concerns—her being a sentient space rock and all—but fumbling and out of his wheelhouse, he doesn’t quite know how to tell her that, “Those are just, uh, rocks.”


	80. Young

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Writer's Choice._ Peridot has a good grasp on how old gems are in human years.

One day, while they’re goofing around and _not_ doing farm chores, Steven realizes that Peridot has a natural knack for translating gem ages to approximate human ages, and it all goes downhill from there.

Garnet, Pearl, and Lapis are technically in their forties, being the oldest of the Crystal Gems. (“Granted, Lazuli lost time in the mirror, so she postures a... younger maturity.”)

Amethyst is, like, twenty three. (“Makes sense,” Steven nods.)

“And I’m... well... I’m, ah, theoretically nineteen,” Peridot admits, a green blush creeping across her cheeks.

“Oh my gosh, Peridot! You’re so young!”

“Nyeh, you’re one to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 80/100! _We're so close, you guys._ Thank you for helping me to keep this project going—your discussions, your comments, and your Kudos have made this collection absolutely special to me. c:
> 
> **Some notes:**
> 
> (1) Because I like poetic endings... I'm going to try to bring us to the finish line by December 17th when Diamond Days starts, so on a couple of days, you might see a double post (like today).
> 
> (2) In terms of prompts, there are eight slots left—#92 to #99! I'm re-opening prompts for today and tomorrow only. Here's the catch, though—you may suggest as many prompts as you'd like. Make a list of potential prompts you'd like to see, and once the prompting period closes, I'm going to go through and choose the ones that intrigue me as being great ways to usher "Fragments" into its finale. Go wild! Get creative. I'm very excited to see what you guys come up with for me. [Also, please leave your prompts in this thread (#80), and bear in mind that I'll only be looking at prompts with time stamps from November 30th and December 1st.]


	81. Vows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : for a prompt... How about the Diamonds at Steven and Connie's wedding? :D

“Before I met you, I lived in a cave and saw only shadows on the wall,” Connie murmurs, “but you _found_ me, Steven, and my world was forever changed.”

In the space between their (colossal) seats, Blue and Yellow Diamond’s fingers are templed, a holy union.

_Once upon a time, we found each other._

Blue squeezes the other’s hand.

“You showed me friendship, kindness, fun, and, well, _monsters,_ ” Connie smiles wryly, her voice taut, a hundred emotions thick. “You showed me love.”

Yellow leans down, presses her lips to the crown of Blue’s head.

_I cannot live life without you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Allegory of the cave, anyone?~~


	82. Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ how about a battle prompt Connie VS w.Pearl

Stance wide, body lowered, Connie warily eyes the perversion of her sword master.

 _White Pearl_ , Steven called her.

 _Broken_ , Pearl explained.

Connie readjusts her grip on her new sword—it’s thinner than Rose Quartz’s—and tries not to think about how the buns on either side of her head remind of her of Princess Leia’s.

There’s a certain sweetness to them.

An innocence.

“Surrender now, human,” White Pearl intones, her voice monotonous, stilted, and not her own.

 _(She’s gone_ , Pearl murmured. _There’s… there’s no coming back from this.)_

“My apologies, Pearl—I’m afraid that’s not a part of my vocabulary.”


	83. Fusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : Diamonds reacts to Stevonnie (Probably after the Diamonds got used to Connie and Steven being actual beings with feelings and personalities instead of some organic and some weird form. Because otherwise it would just be Jasper again.)

The lifted ban on fusion has not caught traction in Homeworld yet.

So Steven—because he’s Steven—suggests that the Diamonds fuse to set the shining example.

And Blue Diamond, because she’s _trying_ , murmurs, “Show us how.”

Connie offers her hand and Steven takes it.

Their dance is simple, but more than that, it is _fun_.

They’re both laughing when pink light swallows them whole.

“I know it’s scary,” Stevonnie says. “Intimacy usually is… but fusion is just another way to tell someone you love that you love them.”

At this, Yellow Diamond’s golden gaze shifts.

Almost imperceptibly.

Meeting blue.


	84. Invasion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : If you still need one for “I” I would suggest Invasion, Yellow Diamond brings Steven to a future colony being invaded by gems!

They stand upon the precipice of a world soon to be theirs—Andromeda, a telluric planet in the seventh system.

The landscape is swollen with Quartz soldiers trampling the ground underfoot.

Their marching order is to destroy.

“Stop them!” Steven shrieks, ramming his fist against her leg, but it registers no more than the breeze.

For Yellow Diamond is preoccupied by numbers and stratagems and statistics.

She’s wondering if she should have sent more Jaspers than Amethysts and eyeing that massive canyon rife with sandstone deposits.

(She doesn’t see the flowers that are dying where her soldiers dare to tread.)

 


	85. First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : Steven and Connie having their first kiss but everything gets awkward in the end because of hormones and puberty

As Stevonnie, they drive to the top of the cliff where they’d once raced Kevin, and as Steven and Connie, they lie on the hood of Greg’s car and point out constellations.

“Dork!”

“Hey, that’s my line!” Steven huffs, nudging Connie with his jacketed shoulder.

“Wait, Steven—my hair’s tangled in your stupid sleeve zipper!”

“Oops, sorry! Lemme…”

They squirm to get free, but _somehow_ , they’re only drawn closer together.

So close that Connie’s lips are hovering just above his.

They’ve dreamt of this moment.

They’ve feared it.

Blushing, Connie takes it.

(It’s barely a kiss—they’re laughing so hard.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a double day. c:


	86. Tease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Yellow helping pink without her knowing but blue does and kisses her

“I know what you did.”

Yellow Diamond does not quite look up from her panels when she grumbles, “ _Oh_ , and what exactly would that be?”

Blue snakes her enrobed arms around the throne, encircling Yellow’s neck, her palms coming to rest above her golden gem.

“Pink had twenty meetings in her queue this morning, but she told _me_ that she only had ten.” The Diamond leans in, her mouth brushing against Yellow’s ear, tickling it. “I wonder where those other ten could have gone?”

“Perhaps… there were cancellations.”

“Ah, _yes_ ,” she hums, “cancellations… because we _Diamonds_ receive loads of those.”


	87. Mom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Something about Barb and Sadie. (If you're still looking to do rarer characters!)

When she gets home from her shift, Sadie finds her mom passed out in the recliner, her hat dangling lopsidedly over one half of her face, her empty mailbag propped limply at her feet.

The sight plucks at her where she stands, and before she knows it, she’s hovering above the recliner, and then she’s leaning down, pressing a kiss on her mother’s lined cheek.

Because she watched Steven’s dead alien mom tell her kid she’d always be with him today.

And sometimes, she forgets how _lucky_ she is to have a mom who tries to be the very same.


	88. Guilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ I would absolutely adore it if you wrote a fic about Pearl and Bismuth, platonic or romantic.

“She hurt you,” Pearl whispers, “and I’m sorry for that.”

She says it so seriously, with such vulnerable conviction, that Bismuth cannot help but pause and look up from her crafting table. In the dim light of her forge, Pearl’s pale features are sunken with shadows, all of the light in them gone.

“What’d’ve you got to be sorry for, honey?” Bismuth replies, looking away, looking anywhere but _her._ “Rose… Pink Diamond… whoever she was… did what she did, and that’s not on you.”

“And as a matter of fact,” she adds quietly, “what _I_ did isn’t on you either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's slowly dawning on me that "Fragments" is quickly coming to an end, and it's making me a lil emotional. :o


	89. Xerox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : And maybe you could write a fic called "Xerox" about one of the pearls, since Homeworld lowkey treats them like smartphones.

The royal Pearls do not realize how lucky they are—to be _made_ to serve a higher order, to be consigned to a Diamond’s side.

Blue Diamond made her own Pearl in her own solemn likeness; Yellow did the same.

Pink Diamond accidentally broke her first toy, but White took the pieces and made it her own.

They are lofted high, those royal Pearls; they are _lucky_.

Pearl, Facet 6, Cabochon 5XG is a common Pearl given to a Morganite.

And that Morganite tells her she’ll never be worth anything.

And that Pearl takes it and takes it and takes—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double post today because I thought 88 and 89 go well together. c:
> 
> Also, can anyone guess who Pearl, Facet 6, Cabochon 5XG is? ;)


	90. Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Writer's Choice:_ On the eve of Steven's birth, Rose has a final request for her loved ones.

In the end, it is only Greg and Pearl, each holding one of her hands like it’s a lifeline.

She’s so damn happy; her plump smile cuts through the sheen of sweat coating her face.

But she’s so damn sad, too; she looks between Pearl and Greg and can hardly face what she’s done to them, what she’s _doing_ to them now.

(But Rose Quartz doesn’t have time for second thoughts; she doesn’t have any more time at all.)

“Love them,” she whispers. “Love them like you loved me… you both loved me so well.”

_And I’m nothing like you._


	91. Nostalgia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : Prompt for the Letter N: "Nostalgia." (Take that however you want.)

“Ruby?”

“Yes, Sapphy?”

“I know this seems random… but do you remember that time Rose and Greg entered a pie eating contest to win concert tickets?”

“Oh, _yeah_! Greg tapped out after, like, five.”

“And Rose carried on until the referee told her she _had_ to stop.”

“Pearl had to look away,” Ruby sighs fondly. “Not too bad of a concert either.”

“Not at all given _their_ eccentric tastes,” Sapphire laughs, but then just as suddenly stops, catching herself.

“You miss her.”

The statement is soft; Ruby’s eyes are the same.

“I’m angry at her.”

“… you can be both, Sapphire.”


	92. Reconstruction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : Bismuth, who has spend very little time with humans rebuild the beach house, either she is going to forget something or add someyhing to hilarius effect. Bonus, she rebuilds the barn and gets into meep morphs as well

So because Greg said that the house had to be _functional_ for Steven to live in, Bismuth resigns herself to mediocrity and adheres to the old blueprints as much as she can.

Repairs the shingles on the roof.

Reconstructs the side of the house that Blue Diamond’s ship crashed into.

Goes to a hardware store and purchases some wood— _wood!_ —for the deck.

Easy peasy and boring as all get out.

Granted… she does end up making a _few_ aesthetic choices.

Something for her designer sensibilities.

Nothing _too_ big.

(Steven definitely won’t miss that ugly, white seat in the bathroom.)


	93. Nice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : A continuation to the Lapis-and-Greg prompt "Witch" (#16). I mention this one mostly for continuity sake, as way back when you wrote it I did express a desire for a sequel of sorts!

One day, they have the conversation they’ve been trying not to have for months now.

Because Greg does his _thing_... he goes out of his way to be nice to her—extends a warm smile, a word, a touch.

And Lapis almost despises him for it.

“I took your city’s water. I nearly drowned Steven. _I broke your leg,_ ” she hisses. “What do you want from me?”

_I’m your Water Witch, remember?_

“You were scared,” Greg retorts, his eyes kind. “Heck, I would have been, too. That doesn’t make you a bad person, Lapis.”

“... I did horrible things.”

“Even still.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @CountMohawk — As "Fragments" quickly approaches its end, I can't help but give a shout-out to you, my friend, for inspiring some truly lucrative prompts and discussion throughout this collection. When I think of "Fragments" as a collaboration between myself and you guys, the conversations we've had about characters inevitably come to mind. If I'm not mistaken, it started with "Witch," and if so, it was more than my pleasure to revisit Greg and Lapis's story one last time. <3
> 
> —
> 
> On a side note, my apologies to commenters if I've left you hanging for a couple of days! It's finals week, and I'm a bit overwhelmed rn. ;-; I promise to clear out my inbox when I get home this weekend!


	94. Atlas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : Something something, White Diamond's thoughts?

In Sector 9, two Quartzes get into a fist brawl, and only one makes it out.

She sends a drone to collect the shards.

At the same time, she watches Blue Diamond kneel at her altar and weep for the hibiscus petals scattered across its surface.

At the same time, she directs her Pearl to apprehend a suspected Off Color for trial.

At the same time, she holds the core of Homeworld together.

It is falling apart.

She is.

It’s dying.

She may very well be.

At the same time, White Diamond frowns slightly.

She’s never considered this variable before.


	95. Xenophobia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : Xenophobia for X since gems are actual aliens

“Pink?”

The question drops down to him from Blue Diamond’s throne, where her inquisitive gaze lands just as heavily.

Steven looks up and tries not to flinch from its intensity—the love in her eyes, the _sadness_.

“Hm?”

“Why do you choose to consort with that… that… _fusion_?” She purses her plump lips. “It’s beneath you.”

_Garnet._

His stomach drops.

She means _Garnet_.

“Because she’s _amazing_ ,” he quickly insists, “and awesome and funny and made of love, and she… she loves me!”

“That hardly justifies fusion.”

“ _But you shouldn't have to justify love_ … you of all gems should know that.”


	96. Reflection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : Peridot and Yellow Diamond realising they are very similar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double post today!
> 
> Also, fun fact—#95 and #96 are the last Blue and Yellow Diamond pieces respectively!

“I’m… like you,” Peridot says suddenly. “Logical, pragmatic, task oriented… cold.”

Yellow Diamond arches a thin brow.

They’d been discussing electricity efficiencies before this, and she doesn’t quite see the correlation between amperes and shared personality traits.

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” she frowns. “You’re a gem from my court—naturally, you’ve retained some of my likeness.”

“But level with me here—doesn’t that mean that I don’t possess free will? That everything I’ve done is a reflection of _you_?”

“Peridot,” she snorts indelicately, “you once called me a _clod_ to my _face_. My ego could have never anticipated that _._ ”


	97. Lieges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt:_ Lars and Connie have a heart to heart about steven, this life and their Roles in all this.

It’s been seven hours days since Steven entered the Diamond mindscape to reason with the _less than reasonable_ White Diamond. In the real world, Lars and Connie sit vigil over his body.

“I told him not to go alone,” Connie murmurs, “I told him we could _physically_ go to space, but he wouldn’t let me help him, but _he’s_ allowed to help me, and I—”

She falters, her fighter’s fists crumbling in her lap.

Lars gets it, better than most.

“That dork doesn’t know the effect he has on people,” he shrugs fondly, placing a pink hand on Connie’s shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the unannounced hiatus. ;-; When I got home on Friday, finals behind me, I just _crashed._
> 
> Sooooo... you guys are gonna get three fragments today, lol. I also plan to catch up on comments!


	98. Rumors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : Rumors on Homeworld about "Pink Diamond" (Read, Steven, and all the conflicting theories on what happened).

Rumor has it that Pink Diamond has been resurrected from her shards.

That the Diamonds have finally have succeeded in doing the impossible.

That they’ve reversed the effects of death.

_Long live the Diamonds._

Rumor has it that she looks different now, that her hair is as black as night, her eyes full of stars.

“But she’s _back_ ,” an Amethyst whispers, wiping at her eyes. “She’s home.”

Rumor has it that she’s going to reform Homeworld, that she plans to bring it back from the brink with her smile, her hands, her words.

“I’d like to see you try, Starlight.”


	99. Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt_ : Our Pearl contemplates love.

Hands intertwined, they sit above the field that will be their battlefield tomorrow. It is rife with strawberries and vines and butterflies; a sweet aroma flits upon the slight evening breeze.

“Pearl?”

“Yes, Rose?”

(She doesn’t know it, but she says it with the same cadence as: _Yes, my Diamond?_ )

“I want you to be careful tomorrow,” she murmurs, urgent. “No unnecessary risks, alright?”

“You know I can’t agree to that.”

“Why?”

Pearl tilts her head questioningly—as though the answer is obvious.

To her, it is.

“Love is sacrifice.”

Her smile is sad, soft.

“And unfortunately, sacrifice is unkind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _@thesometimeswarrior:_ Oh, boy—am I about to get sappy. When I started writing "Fragments," I didn't exactly have an inkling as to the impact it would have. I envisioned prompts, Kudos, and maybe some really nice comments from some really nice people... but I what didn't foresee is the friend I would gain in _you._ From "Grief" onwards—the first prompt I ever fulfilled for you!—you have been a constant companion on this journey, not only engaging me in some absolutely _brilliant_ conversations about characters but absolutely melting my heart with your prolific compliments. Gosh, and then, after you became _my_ reader, I couldn't help but become _yours._ From _SU_ to _A:TLA_ , you have a clear, incisive grasp on characters that I aspire to when I look to my own work. Thank you for everything—for your careful consideration of my work, for the insight you bring to your own, for your meta, for all of the Tumblr messages, for your kindness, for your friendship.
> 
> Thank you for being my chavruta.


	100. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Writer's Choice._ Steven has a hard time adjusting to nights in the beach house.

It takes him a little while to get used to nights in the beach house.

Boards creak, and shadows whisper.

Steven whimpers, and within seconds, a gem is there.

Sometimes, it’s Amethyst, who sits on the edge of his bed and tells him funny stories.

Sometimes, it’s Garnet, who curls up on top of his sheets and promises to protect him from the night.

And sometimes, it’s Pearl, who used to _never_ talk to him, but now she cups his face as she hums strange lullabies in his ear.

She kisses his forehead.

They all say, “I love you, Steven.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so ends "Fragments." :')
> 
> Thank you for taking this journey with me. I've said it once, and I'll say it again, this collection has never been just my own. It's been a collaborative project between you and I—your prompts, my words, your _amazing_ comments, our discussions. I couldn't have done it without you, and somewhere along the way, I realized that I wouldn't have had half as much fun if I tried. 
> 
> Every prompt, Kudos, and comment has been a lantern in the darkness, softly illuminating my way to this final piece—all of these fragments in Steven's universe.
> 
>  
> 
> _Some parting notes:_
> 
> 1\. If you're a big nerd like I am, and you like these sorts of things, I've compiled some useless statistics on "Fragments" [here.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ylunzcBI-vyRDqfU-VcCsXnmQBcDCcfilVBtkfzZWPQ/edit?usp=sharing)  
> 2\. You don't have to answer this question—my ego is just really curious, lol—but what have been some of your favorite fragments? (On a writer's aside, some of my favorites to _write_ have been those where I get to worldbuild. I'm also v. fond of introspective character pieces!)  
>  3\. I do want to do a "Fragments" sequel _some day_ —not for a long while, but I think it'd be fun to play with the parameters I set for myself. Maybe 200 word prompts instead of 100!  
> 4\. And finally, cheers to Diamond Days everyone! I'm so excited to see where this show is going next!


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